


Lanakila (Overcome)

by MissPotionsMaster



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt Steve McGarrett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissPotionsMaster/pseuds/MissPotionsMaster
Summary: Catherine Rollins is in for a big surprise when she stops by his house to ask for his help.
Relationships: Lynn Downey/Steve McGarrett, Melissa Armstrong | Amber Vitale/Danny "Danno" Williams
Kudos: 16





	Lanakila (Overcome)

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate season 7 episode 7. This story is canon compliant up until the season six finale. I wrote this in one day, and I have no idea if it is any good, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. According to google, Lanakila means "to overcome" or "victory", and because of where I went with this story, I went with "to overcome". Enjoy!

When Catherine knocked on Steve’s front door a year and a half after she left Hawaii, and Steve, to go off with the CIA, she didn’t expect a beautiful blonde woman wearing leggings and one of Steve’s navy t-shirts to answer the door. “Can I help you?” the woman asked. 

“Hi, my name is Catherine, is Steve home?” She said, wondering who this woman was, and feeling a pang of jealousy at her wearing Steve’s clothes. 

“Oh, you’re Catherine,” the other woman said, raising her eyebrow and giving her a once over, assessing her. A moment of silence passed before she stepped back from the door, allowing Catherine inside. 

“I’m Lynn, Steve is in the shower. He’ll be out soon.” 

“I take it you know who I am?” Catherine asks. 

“The woman who abandoned Steve in a Taliban prison vanished for a year, came back just long enough to give him hope that you were sticking around this time, then lied about doing humanitarian work in Nepal, breaking Steve’s heart and abandoning him yet again.” Lynn summed up the last two and a half years of hers and Steve’s relationship with an unimpressed tone and a judgmental look. Though even Catherine had to admit to herself that she deserves to be judged for the decisions she’s made in regards to her relationship with Steve. 

“I guess you’re his new girlfriend?” Catherine asks though she didn’t really want to know. 

“Fiancé and I don’t think a year and two months counts as ‘new’” Lynn responds. 

“How long have you two been engaged?” She asks the other woman, another stab of jealousy spiking through her gut. 

“About a month,” Lynn replies, not giving any more than the bare minimum of information to this woman. Steve should be the one to decide how much his ex knows about them and their lives. 

Before Catherine could ask anything else, a chime came from both Lynn’s phone and the panel on the wall, which wasn’t there the last time Catherine was in this house. Without looking at either, she got up from her seat and left the room. Catherine was unsure what she should do, so she decided to stay where she was, sitting on the armrest of the living room couch. A few minutes passed before they reentered the room, Lynn pushing Steve in a wheelchair. “Oh my god, what happened?!” She gasped out, and Steve let out this dry, humorless chuckle in response, 

“I take it that you were not checking up on things while you’ve been gone. Which means you came here to ask for SuperSEAL’s help. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not exactly up for a covert mission anymore.” He says bitterly, though the bitterness is less about his own physical condition, and more about the audacity of his ex, coming to ask him for favors. 

“I don’t care about that, please, tell me what happened,” Catherine begged, sliding down the armrest to fully sit on the couch. Lynn sat down in the armchair to the right of the couch, and Steve rolled up alongside the chair, lacing his fingers with Lynn’s. Catherine could see Lynn give him a comforting squeeze, and she felt that pang of jealousy again. 

He sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, then looked back at Catherine, giving a brief nod, seemingly coming to a decision. “A little less that five months ago, Danny and I were on a case where we went undercover as a pilot and a mechanic. I was flying a drug trafficker and a ton of his product back to the island, Danny in the co-pilot’s seat, and five-0 waiting at the airport to pick him up as soon as we landed. In the air, a helicopter came up alongside us, shooting at us with high powered rifles. I got shot twice, one destroying my liver, the other taking out my lower spine. After multiple surgeries and Danny giving me half of his liver, I was given the news that I would never walk again.” He says, giving her the brief version of the story. 

“Why didn’t you call me?” Catherine asked, hurt that he wouldn’t think to tell her any of this until now. 

“Why would I? Why do you think that you have the right to updates on my life? You left me, remember?” Steve asked angrily, doing his best to keep his voice down. 

“I know, but Steve, I still care about you,” Catherine says.

“Do you? Because even just a quick google search would have brought you to the story, but you didn’t even bother to do that. I lost everything; don’t you get that? I lost my career with the Navy, I lost my place with Five-0, I lost my damn legs, but you have still somehow managed to make this about you! I didn’t tell you because you abandoned me, and you don’t get to know everything about me, while lying about yourself. Lynn, Danny, Melissa, and those kids are the only reasons that I am as functional as I am now.” Steve tells her. 

Catherine chose to strategically retreat from this conversation topic, and instead asked, “How did you and Lynn meet?” 

“Danny’s girlfriend is Lynn’s best friend, she set us up,” Steve tells her, looking over at Lynn and smiling at her. It’s a smile that Catherine recognizes, one that used to be directed at her, and that jealousy was now joined by sadness. 

“And you’re getting married,” Catherine says. 

“Yeah, I proposed last month, but I knew I was going to when I was in the hospital. I wanted to wait until I could go home though.” He says, still not looking at Catherine. 

“How did you know?” Catherine asks him, and she can see by the look on Lynn’s face, that she is curious about what his answer will be. 

He paused, gathering his thoughts, then said “When I was told I would never walk again…I was devastated. I told her that if she left, I wouldn’t blame her, that she hadn’t signed up for this. She told me that she signed up for me and that she loves me, not my job or my physical ability. My first thought when she said that was ‘Catherine would have run the other direction’. That was the last time I ever compared her to you. I knew then that I was going to marry her, but I had to get out of the hospital and the rehab center first.” He tells her, then brought Lynn’s hand to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. 

“What are you going to do now?” She asks him, wondering if he was forced into early retirement. 

“Once I’m done with rehab, I’m going to be training for the Paralympics in the Para-Triathlon event.” He tells her. He made this decision with his rehab doctor who has also been a doctor at the Paralympic Training Center. He figured out that Steve felt lost, that he didn’t know what to do now that he could be in the navy or a cop, and that Steve is very goal-oriented. Steve needs a purpose, so he gave Steve a purpose, something to strive for. He saved Steve’s life as much as the surgeon had and as much as Danny had. 

“That’s amazing Steve, you’ll kill it,” Catherine says honestly. 

Before she can say anything else, Danny, Lynn, Grace, and Charlie come through the front door. Melissa noticed Catherine first, freezing in the doorway, but Danny was looking down at Charlie as he says “Hey guys, we got some steaks and Mahi and Melissa made a salad.” Once he looked up, saw Catherine sitting there, his happy smile shut down, and she could see that he was pissed. “No. I don’t care what you came here for, Steve doesn’t owe you anything, so no.” 

“Hi, Danny,” Catherine says, a blush rising on her cheeks. The last thing she said to Danny was a lie, and she knew when she did it that he would hold a grudge against her, and she couldn’t blame him. She didn’t really know Melissa and she left before she even had the chance to meet Charlie, but she had been close to Grace. “Hi, Gracie.” 

“I’m not Gracie to you anymore. You left. You hurt Uncle Steve and you didn’t even say goodbye to me, you just left. You never even call! You didn’t even come back when Uncle Steve was in the hospital! He almost died and you weren’t there! What are even doing here?” Grace demanded, moving forward to put her hands on Steve’s shoulders. 

“Steve wasn’t wrong when he said that I came here to ask for his help, but I now realize that that was unfair of me. You’re right Danny, he doesn’t owe me anything. None of you do, and I’m sorry that I’ve hurt all of you. So…I’m going to go. Have a good dinner. Maybe I’ll see you in the next Olympics.” Catherine says, getting up from her seat, moving toward Steve, kissing his cheek, then leaving the house. 

Nearly five years later, she did, in fact, see him compete in the Tokyo 2021 Para-Triathlon event. Not only did he compete, he won gold. From the living room in the safe house she’s been in for two months, she watches him break the world record and get the gold. She watches as they show a close up of him celebrating with Danny, Melissa, Grace, Charlie, Nahele, Lynn, and Steve’s toddler son Landon and baby girl Savannah. She cries as she watches, so intensely proud of him, but also grieving the loss of what could have been. She could have been his wife, could have been the mother of his children, could have been his support, could have been…happy. She’s not, and that’s entirely her own fault, but she is so glad that Steve was able to find his own happiness.


End file.
